Module 6: Finding Balance
PRIORITISE YOUR LIFE: MAKE MORE TIME FOR ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS AND ENJOYING LIFE
For many people, it seems like life has two options: achieving goals and enjoying life. Neither one of them seems as if they are one hundred percent fulfilled. There seems to be a broad spectrum on the scale of go-getters and over-achievers to those who slack in all departments.
How many times have you caught yourself saying you don’t have enough time or there isn’t enough time in the day? Is this really the truth? There are many books on the subject of how to be highly successful as well as how to achieve happiness.
If you’re like most people, you probably think these notions are for other people, who are super extraordinary, and you feel that you don’t fall into the mix. Today, the demands of work, career, education, family, and homeownership seem to take priority over enjoyment. Relaxation time may be scheduled as a once-a-month outing or even an annual vacation. However, even those pleasures seem to be filled with work.
There’s planning and scheduling and not enough time – or so it seems – for down time. Are you waiting for retirement to enjoy your life? Many workers feel as though they are waiting for life to happen rather than creating life they want.
Do you wish you had more time to achieve goals and even more time to enjoy life? If so, you are certainly not alone. Here is a special report on how to prioritise your life and make more time for both achieving your goals and enjoying your life.
FINDING BALANCE
If you think about life being balanced, you might envision a seesaw in the position of being directly balanced in the middle with no ups, no downs, and simply managing to stay in the middle ground.
Of course, life doesn’t work like that. There are ups and there are most certainly downs. Sometimes you might feel as though you just want to jump off the seesaw and lay on the ground for a little while just to gain your equilibrium back.
What does it mean to be in balance if life has its difficulties? When you are in balance, you maintain your equilibrium while life’s ups and downs come to visit. Of course, you go through the various emotions as circumstances both good and not so good work their way through your life.
However, being in balance means you get to choose how long you stay in the down position. Of course, realistically, you can’t always stay up on the seesaw of life, but you can choose how you feel and what your action steps are going to be while you’re down.
Being in balance means intentionally, no matter how hard it is, choosing how you will show up under any given circumstance.
HOW DO YOU REALLY ACHIEVE BALANCE? YOU CAN ACHIEVE BALANCE IN SEVERAL WAYS:
- Feel your emotions and move quickly through them – it’s perfectly fine to become emotional when the roller coaster of life gets too fast and too furious. Feel what you need to feel but move quickly on to the next step. The next step after feeling is action. If something doesn’t feel right, chances are it isn’t right. The next logical step to create more space in your life for fulfilling goals and time for enjoyment is action.
- Choose an action step to recreate the scene. If you’ve lost a job, fire up your resume. If your home needs a repair, start asking family and friends for referrals on contractors. Don’t just sit and stew about what happened, but take the appropriate time to recreate what happens next. The faster you barrel through the downs of life, the sooner you can get back up. It’s simply a matter of gravity. Put those feet on the floor and bounce that seesaw up once again.
- Don’t regurgitate facts and stories repeatedly – the more you talk about what happened, how unfair it was, and what a nuisance it was, the more energy you expend. This energy could be used for better purposes. You can create an answer to the problem and you can spend that much more time enjoying your life, setting and achieving goals.
- If you find yourself faced with a problem, take the energy needed to create some sort of answer rather than dwell only on the issue at hand. We all use energy to get through the day’s events. However, we get to choose how much energy is spent on each project. Look at your life, what is going well? Do you have an amazing successful career or education? If so, then you might be spending all of your time and energy in that one area and the rest of your life is completely out of balance from family to personal relationships.
It’s perfectly fine to be out of balance due to a special meeting or function or life event. You can still create a daily habit of taking one small actionable step toward a personal goal, dream, or desire.
1. • Dropped the Ball on Your New Year’s Resolution
DROPPED THE BALL ON YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
HOW TO GET BACK ON THE HEALTH TRACK IN 2021
There are many challenges we all have to face, when it comes to achieving our goals, fulfilling our dreams, and living a life we love. However, once we step out of blaming our childhood, life, other people, we can clearly see we have the power to create a life we truly love.
We are given every tool and habit we choose to implement and by taking responsibility and looking deep within ourselves and our lives we see how we can step up our game and show up to shine brighter than ever.
Once we look into our own lives instead of looking outwardly and externally we can recognise where we fall short and create self-discipline in our lives. By creating self-discipline, we rest the button for a powerful and productive life. What thoughts come to mind when you think of taking responsibility and being self-disciplined? If they are negative thoughts, you might want to spend some time rethinking this thought.
You are a product of your thoughts. Associate success with taking responsibility and self discipline and you will soon see, your life will be in priority order and you will have so much more time to enjoy it.
Once you establish new priorities and habits, you’ll wonder how you ever survived without them.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
2. Achieving your Goals
AVOID PROCRASTINATION
The most highly successful people don’t have to deal with procrastination often. It’s not even in the cards for them. However, for the rest of us, it’s a reality. Here are a few tips to deal with procrastination when it strikes:
• Allow a few minutes for guilty pleasures but put a timer on it
• Set a schedule for checking social media
• Work on a computer that does not allow (blocks) social media and email
• Time yourself when checking emails or answering them.
BALANCE WORK AND PLAY
If you’re all work and no play, you are sure to be successful; however, the downside to this is burnout. If you do anything for too long, burn out will surely follow. Here are a few tips to keep the scales balanced:
• Choose your time to work and stick to it.
• Decide, how much if at all, time you will spend on work after hours (for example reading emails at the dinner table, taking calls during family time, etc.)
• Leave work at work.
• Prioritise your work schedule and your home life will run more smoothly as well.
• Learn how to delegate.
• Learn how to say no.
Just like children, we need to schedule free time or play time. We need to be intentional about our time but to understand that while it’s over, it’s time to let it go. Playing for too long can lead to procrastination and loss of structure.
Take 5-minute play breaks; walk in fresh air, hydrate yourself, do some deep breathing or write in a journal. All of these help to energise your spirit.
Use Technology
There are absolutely no excuses for not being organised and achieving goals. Gadgets andtechnology can help you stay on track and help you meet your goals. There are calorie countersand even counters that track your steps. Take advantage of technology.
DECLUTTER
If you feel as though your life is chaos, look at your environment. You are only as productive as your environment you are in. Take a weekend and throw everything out or donate it. If you haven’t used it in six months and it’s not season, then it’s time to let it go.
ORGANISE
When it comes to organisational skills, you are in luck because you can create a new habit at any given time. You can learn new organisational skills that work for you. If you’r environment is a hot mess, then chances are more than likely so is your life. Use these tips to get yourself in gear:
• Put yourself on the calendar.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff.
• Let go of what you can’t control.
• Expand on the positive and minimise the negative so you can enjoy life more.
• Start new habits. It takes only a couple of weeks to create new habits and once they are in place, they will stick.
• If you backslide, it’s okay. Let yourself off the hook and start again. Pick up where you left off.
• Don’t look at major projects like a mountain. Climb one step at a time. Before you know it, you will reach your objective.
• Laugh at your mistakes.
• Don’t beat yourself up so much.
• Make time to meet your needs. Take a catnap, go for a walk, get some fresh air, write in your journal, or chat with a friend.
• Make time management a priority.
• Divide your day into manageable blocks of time.
• Fine-tune your scheduling to meet your responsibilities to others, as well as yourself.
• Work on your dependability and accountability. Do what you say you are going to do when yousay you are going to do it.
• Encourage and reward yourself. Use the reward system. For little goals incorporate smallrewards. When you meet larger goals, treat yourself to something very special.
There are many challenges we all have to face, when it comes to achieving our goals, fulfilling our dreams, and living a life we love. However, once we step out of blaming our childhood, life, other people, we can clearly see we have the power to create a life we truly love.
Now that’s covered, let’s look at how you can create reasons not excuses for achieving your goals.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
3. Managing Life Areas
MANAGING LIFE AREAS
In order to live a whole, full, and complete life, you need to break your life down into categories.What are the categories that are most important to you? Which ones are you most successful in?Where is there a breakdown and you need to recreate?
If you look at one of the categories and see how successful it is, you can rest assured that this area is one wherein you are fully accountable and available.
Have you noticed an area that is falling by the wayside? You might have to re purpose some time and energy from a super successful area, in order to create a life you love that is full of balance and success in all areas of your life.
For example, consider beginning with areas of your life similar to the ones listed below.
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Food shopping
• Laundry
• Organising
• Scheduling
• Finances
• Social life
• Sleep
• Healthy eating
• Fitness
• Mindfulness
• Physical activities and adventures
• Travel
Keep the list fresh by adding other categories as needed as well as removing any that are not suited to you or needed. Don’t forget to include dreams, wishes and bucket lists.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
4. How to live with positivity and limited stress every day
WORRY AND NEGATIVE THOUGHTS LEAD TO STRESS.
One way to have less stress is to live with positivity. Learning how to live with a positive attitude can be challenging but with practice every day it will become a habit.
HERE ARE TEN WAYS TO STAY POSITIVE EVERY DAY:
- When you catch yourself saying what-if or imagining the worst case scenario, take control by turning those thoughts into positive ones. Instead of worrying, think of the best possible outcome.
- Use breathing techniques to keep you centred. When you’re really stressed, take at least three deep breaths to calm yourself before you take action or start overanalysing the situation.
- Don’t compare what’s happening now with what happened before. It’s difficult to not compare changes, especially negative ones, with what happened in the past. Don’t wish things would go back to the way they were if you’re facing negative problems. Instead find a positive solution and consider why you’re facing difficulty.
- Focus on solutions rather than the problems. There is less stress when you are working toward solving a problem.
- Learn how to treat others well. Treat others the way you’d like to be treated. Be kind. Smile.
- Focus on self-improvement. It’s easy to blame others for our problems. But positive people know that won’t get them anywhere. Instead, find ways you can improve yourself and build your skills and mindset into a person who can overcome the obstacles, instead of blaming external factors for your lack of success or problems.
- Laugh at yourself. Everyone makes mistakes and messes up sometimes. Learn a lesson from the mistake and laugh it off. Take yourself lightly.
- Work on whatever you are capable of achieving. It’s never too late to accomplish what you want in life. Quit obsessing over what you should have done sooner. Take steps every day toward what you want to accomplish.
- Reach out to others. Form new connections and reach out to old connections. Whenever possible, network with others in a positive way.
- Start each day with a happy thought. Remind yourself of your strengths, your goals, and the things that make you happy. Feel gratitude for the things you do have. Focus on the positive experiences you have every day. It might be as simple as a cuddle from your puppy to getting a new client. Use daily affirmations.
Living with positivity on a daily basis leaves less room for stress in your life. Positive people are calmer, work towards what they want and achieve their goals better than those who continually worry, and find the negative in any situation.
Lets look at the conditions and responses of prolonged stress.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
Measure stress according to the number of “Life Change Units” that apply to events in the past year of your life.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.
5. The Benefits of Exercise
THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE
Benefit #1: It improves your self-esteem.
Exercising regularly or more than twice a week will make you feel better about yourself and naturally improve your self-esteem. It will make you feel like you have accomplished something and like you have done something amazing for yourself. This feeling of accomplishment will make you believe in yourself more and you will become confident in other aspects of your life.
Benefit #2: It will make your skin glow.
If you battle with bad or dull skin, try adding exercise to your daily to-do list and make it a point to check it off. Regular exercise can help relieve dullness and acne and may help prevent the signs of early aging like wrinkles and fine lines.
Benefit #3: You will sleep better.
Regular exercise will reward you with a peaceful night of deep and quality sleep. Exercising strengthens your body’s circadian rhythms, which keep you alert and awake during the day and make you feel sleepy at night. If you find it hard to sleep, try just fifteen minutes of exercise a day and notice the improvements.
Benefit #4: It improves your memory and brain health.
Exercising can improve your memory and the overall health of your brain. It can prevent brain fog, that sudden shut down of your brain that happens when you get tired and makes even the simplest and most routine tasks seem difficult and suddenly very confusing. Exercise also stimulates the production of hormones, which aid in the repair and growth of your brain cells.
Benefit #5: It helps reduce chronic pains.
Regular exercise can help in reducing and possibly eliminating excruciating chronic pains. One of the most common causes of chronic pain is inactivity. Your body is just like a machine; as long as it remains active, it will function well. Several studies have also shown that regular exercise can increase your pain tolerance and decrease your body’s perception of pains and aches.
Benefit #6: It can help you feel happier.
Last but, definitely not the least, regular exercise can help reduce or prevent feelings of anxiety and depression and make you feel happy again. According to a study conducted by Penn State University, people who exercise regularly, even at a beginner level, are found to be more content and happier than those who fail to do so. To feel even better, try increasing the intensity of your workouts slowly and feel more accomplished, healthy, and happy.
Please wait while flipbook is loading. For more related info, FAQs and issues please refer to DearFlip WordPress Flipbook Plugin Help documentation.